Iraqi Council Could Seek US Help To Eject Anti-Iran Group

Dow Jones Newswires ^ | The Associated Press

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The Iraqi Governing Council might ask the U.S. military to expel an anti-Iran paramilitary group from Iraq, but the council has no plans to hand them over to Iran, where they are wanted for terrorist attacks, two Iraqi officials said Friday.

Earlier this week, the U.S.-appointed council decided to expel by year's end the 3,800 members of the Mujahedeen Khalq, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.

"We might ask the Americans because they have the military capabilities," Governing Council member Dara Noor al-Din said. "We don't have an army and the police force isn't well enough equipped to face the Mujahedeen, because they have light weapons."

The U.S.-led administration of Iraq will meet the council to discuss the expulsion of the Mujahedeen Khalq, said a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA.

The coalition official, who spoke in a briefing with media on condition of anonymity, didn't say whether the U.S. military would forcibly eject the group.

"We and the Governing Council and most Iraqis agree that the Mujahedeen Khalq is a terrorist organization and needs to be dealt with as such," the official said.

The group was disarmed by U.S. forces and is currently being held inside its camp northeast of Baghdad. Mujahedeen members at the camp said they were prohibited by the U.S. military from speaking with the press.

The Mujahedeen Khalq has for years sought to topple Iran's clerical government and kept an army in Iraq. During Saddam Hussein's rule, its fighters are believed to have taken part in some of Saddam's campaigns to suppress dissent among the country's Kurdish and Shiite Muslim communities.

The coalition briefer said he had no information on speculation that the group might be bartered away in a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran. A swap would hand the Mujahedeen Khalq to Tehran in exchange for members of al-Qaida in Iranian custody.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush administration has called on Tehran to detain and hand over al-Qaida members in Iran. In October, Bush said it would improve Iranian-U.S. relations "if we end up reaching an agreement on the al-Qaida that they hold."

Officials in the U.S. Department of State have criticized U.S. defense officials for agreeing to a wartime cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq, after initially bombing the group's base during the war. Some in the U.S. have commended the Mujahedeen for battling the Iranian clerical regime, and the Pentagon is thought to be more sympathetic to its goals than the State Department.

Recently, however, the U.S. appears to have taken a harder line against the group, and Iraqi Governing Council members - eager to mend ties with Iran - seem ready to dispose of a band of fighters whose presence has become an embarrassment.

Still, the Governing Council has no plans to hand the group, known as the MEK, to Tehran.

"We're not concerned where the MEK are going to go," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi. "They can choose their own destination. We've given them sufficient time to gather their stuff and leave the country."